Whether you meet in a live group, or meet via virtually via video conference, getting your mastermind group together for a 3-day Retreat Weekend will change the complexion of your group forever.

Over the past 10 years, many of my virtual mastermind groups get together for a three-day Mastermind Group Retreat Weekend. We’d typically start early on Friday morning and run until lunchtime on Sunday. The purpose of our annual Retreat Weekend was to create a focus and a plan for the coming year.

The group in the photo had been meeting via video conference every month for 4 years but had never met in person. Some members have left and new ones have joined the group, but the core has stayed steady. After four years of meeting together monthly through Zoom, we decided to finally meet in person.

The energy was amazing! We had gotten to know each other in our monthly virtual meetings which were 90 minutes long. Spending three days together took our mastermind group to an entirely different level.

Face-to-face or virtual?

During the Covid pandemic, many mastermind groups moved from face-to-face meetings to virtual meetings. I’m hearing that some groups are beginning to meet face-to-face again, but that some members still aren’t comfortable in a small conference room with others. So, can you create a Retreat Weekend as a virtual event?

The answer is, “Absolutely!” Lots of conferences went virtual in 2020 and 2021 and were successful. Retreat Weekends, or even a Retreat Day, can work well for your members. You’ll have to convert your face-to-face exercises and planning sessions to a virtual model, but shared Google Doc and other tools will help the group to work together, and the shared meals might become virtual coffee or wine events. Here are some tips for keeping members engaged during long, virtual meetings and events.

Here’s a Retreat Weekend agenda you can use

Two and a half days seems to work for people in a face-to-face environment. You can shorten it to one day or one and a half days.

• Friday morning: Everyone arrives at 9:00 am; coffee, tea and conversation for one hour.
• Friday morning/afternoon and Saturday morning: in-depth masterminding (one hour per member), setting one-year goals, choosing yearly intentions/themes, discussing what might hold us back.
• Saturday afternoon: success exercise (for example, doing a Vision Board together), and setting 90-day goals.
• Saturday night: BBQ picnic and bonfire — including burning of pieces of paper where we wrote the things we wanted to let go of in the coming year. (A paper shredder works, too!)
• Sunday morning: presentations/training by group members on specific topics of interest. Each group member gave a 20-minute presentation on a topic that they were an expert in or a topic that they were studying.

More mastermind group Retreat Weekend agenda ideas

There are so many agenda variations you can play with during your retreat weekends, depending on what the people in your mastermind group need and want:

1. Invite a guest speaker to share their knowledge with your members
2. Create guided visualizations of your annual goal
3. Ask a lightening-round of Powerful Questions
4. Take time for quiet seated or walking meditations
5. Set aside time for everyone to work on a big project (and report their progress to the group)
6. Draw a mind map of a big project you want to complete in the coming year
7. Bring in a massage therapist or reflexologist
8. Encourage everyone to write in their journals
9. Discuss a success book you’ve all been reading; ask how each member will apply it to their life

As you can see, a Retreat Weekend gives you a chance to mastermind to a level that you can’t do in shorter meetings. It also gives your members a chance to socialize, building stronger bonds with each other.